China Herald: Billionaire

Monday, February 09, 2015

Women rise at the Hurun rich list - Rupert Hoogewerf

One in ten out, or 279, of the billionaires at the 2015 Global Hurun list were women, is revealed by The Women of China. 35 Of them were from China, says Hurun founder Rupert Hoogewerf, who explains how this year´s changed way of counting delivers a better result, counting in self-made women billionaires.

The Women of China:

According to the report, 69 women built up their respective fortunes from scratch, among whom 35 were Chinese and the others either from the United States or the United Kingdom. The report also pointed out that it was the first time that self-made female billionaires made it onto the list.

"Building from scratch but with a little help from parents or grandparents was found to be the most common way for those on the list to reach their billionaire status. This year, the Hurun Research Institute used a new scoring system to divide the self-made billionaires from those who inherited their wealth, with five distinct levels. Wealthy people under Level 5 implies that they acquired their riches by their own efforts, without any support from their family members," explained Rupert Hoogewerf, chairman and principal investigator of the Hurun List.

The list revealed that 25 percent of the self-made billionaires under Level 4 and Level 5 were female, while 72 percent of Level 1 were women.

The list showed that the average age of the billionaires was 64, the same as last year. The oldest woman on the list came from China: Ms. Yik-Chun Koo Wang, 98, is the co-founder of Johnson Electric Holdings Ltd. and served as its honorary chairperson. The youngest on the list was Elizabeth Holmes, 30, president and CEO of Theranos, who had built a medical-services company revolutionizing blood testing in the United States.

The list provided detailed information about the billionaires from around the world, providing analysis of how their respective fortunes are broken down, which industries were most common among those who topped the list, as well as their respective places of residence.

More at the Women of China.

Rupert Hoogewerf is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´ request form.

Are you looking for more stories by Rupert Hoogewerf? Do check out our latest list.

Tuesday, January 06, 2015

In two years, China has more billionaires than the US - Rupert Hoogewerf

Rupert Hoogewerf or Hurun

The number of dollar billionaires in China will be larger than those in the US in two years time, estimates China Rich List founder Rupert Hoogewerf in GQ. Why China is the growth market of the future.

GQ:

Now, America is still number one in billionaires with 492. Fuck yeah, America, etc. But Rupert Hoogewerf, the Luxembourg-born man behind the Hurun list, estimated for GQ that even given their relative economic slowdown, the Chinese would overtake us in billionaires in two years. He also said that for every billionaire Hurun knows about in China, they suspect there's another one they don't. "Some of them we don't know about because their wealth is new or they live somewhere remote, and some of them are secretive because they're government officials or what have you," Rupert said. But in a world of profound income stagnation (the median income in America is essentially the same as it was fifteen years ago), in a world where more and more money is being concentrated in the hands of the hyper-rich and where most of the hyper-rich have already established their spending patterns and taste preferences—not to mention parked their capital in the banks and companies of their choice—you could argue that the new and soon-to-be billionaires of China are the most important market in the world. If you want to sell things like, say, mega-yachts, China represents close to 100 percent of your potential growth market.

More in GQ.

Rupert Hoogewerf is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers´ request form.

Are you interested in more stories by Rupert Hoogewerf? Do check this regularly updated list.